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“That guy? Adams. Jeff Adams? He was here the other day to get his car fixed.”
I shake my head. “No, you got his name all wrong. But it doesn’t matter. Seriously, you have to stop.”
He takes a step toward me, eyes blazing, looming over me. “Or what, B-Slut? What will you do? Will you and your loser, piece-of-shit family come after me? Huh?”
Instinctively I take a step back, like I’ve always done around him. But hey, his shoulders aren’t even half as broad as Matt’s, and he suddenly looks like an overgrown kid, a kid on stilts, trying to scare me.
So I stand my ground, shocked at the sudden loss of fear. “Stop changing the topic.”
“What, about your family?” He sidles up closer, and yeah, I’m not scared, only furious when he goes on, “My Pretty Bastards, Dad calls you. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”
“Know what? That both you and your dad are douchebags? Already knew it.”
“That we’re family. Oh, you didn’t know? Hadn’t guessed?” He smirks. He’s so close, his stench of sweat and grease is turning my stomach. “Never guessed the truth, even with all the hints I’ve been dropping?”
“Guessed what?” I ask, horrified when my voice breaks.
“That you are my dad’s fucking bastards.”
Not true.
Can’t be true.
No. No frigging way. He’s lying. Always lying. Always bullying me. He likes that, likes scaring me and shocking me and humiliating me. This was definitely a show for the benefit of the guys in the garage, his buddies, nothing more.
But doubt gnaws at me as I walk home though the quiet streets, casting glances over my shoulders for no good reason.
Except there’s a psycho pranker out there who may or may not be Ross, and I never noticed before how dark it is out here when a lamppost has burned out, casting half the street in shadow.
I shiver and hasten my pace, clutching my light coat to my chest. In my old-fashioned dress and heels, I feel like a heroine in a Hitchcock movie.
Great, Octavia. Scare yourself shitless for no reason, why don’t you.
Besides… everything Ross said still swirls around in my head in a dizzying eddy. He’s been calling me a bastard girl since I can remember.
It wasn’t a simple insult. He meant it. He knew.
It all comes back to this. Ross knew. Jasper knew.
Why were we the only ones kept in the dark? I need to talk to someone about it, I need…
I take out my phone and my finger hovers over Matt’s number. Crazy that he’s the first person I want to tell about this, and not Gigi, or Merc, or…
Mom.
Does Mom know this?
What am I thinking? If anyone knows, it’s her. She kind of had to be there when she conceived us.
Of course she knows, and all this time she’s been pretending that our dad up and left, vanished into the frigging sunset.
If Ross is telling the truth.
Is he? About this, about the messages, about everything.
And if he is… oh God. Suddenly all his lewd comments turn my stomach until it’s all I can not to hurl.
He’s my half-brother? The bully who tormented me all my life? And all this time he knew. Everyone knew but me. Everyone…
